What main language did spanish come from?
origans of spanish
6 Answers
Spanish is derived from Latin, like French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian.
There is also some Arabic influence, as Iberia was occupied by Muslims for many centuries. But of course the "mother language" was Latin.
I read that 90% of Spanish vocabulary comes from Latin. However, the same words entered from Latin at different points in history. For example, the words "fabula" and "hablar" have the same Latin roots, but "fabula" entered earlier, and hablar later, after the"f" got dropped. Some other pairs like this are
colocar/colgar, auscultar/escuchar, íntegro/entero, estricto/estrecho
(Can you tell I just wrote an essay about this? 
)
And most words starting with "al" come from Arabic, like algodón, alfeitar, etc.
Latin--the language that was spoken in Rome. That's why it's called a romance language. Really! There is also a significant Greek influence (mostly through the Latin). I think there are some other ancient languages represented in Spanish as well. Perhaps one of the linguists on the forum can give more detail.
English, on the other hand, is a mixture from both Germanic and Romance backgrounds. There are a number of other languages involved in English as well. Consider that we (both Spanish and English) use Arabic numbers.
Calvo is correct about Latin, that is the primary source. And of course, Greek influenced Latin, so that passed on to Spanish as well.
Another substantial influence is Arabic, because the Spanish peninsula was under Arab rule for centuries. Azul, naranja, limón, almohada, almacen, Ojala, and scores of other Spanish words came from Arabic.
latin i agree!
I´d like to add some other surviving influences from Basque and Celtiberian, as well as Germanic languages via the Visigoths.
Castilian is thought to have evolved in the northern fringes of the Iberian Peninsula during the 10th century along the remote crossroad strips among the Alava, Cantabria, Burgos, Soria and La Rioja provinces of Northern Spain, as a strongly innovative and differing variant from its nearest cousin, Leonese, with a higher degree of Basque influence in these regions.
Modern Spanish developed in Castile with the Readjustment of the Consonants during the 15th century. Typical features of Spanish diachronical phonology include lenition (Latin vita, Spanish vida), palatalization (Latin annum, Spanish año, and Latin anellum, Spanish anillo) and diphthongation (stem-changing) of short e and o from Vulgar Latin (Latin terra, Spanish tierra; Latin novus, Spanish nuevo). Similar phenomena can be found in other Romance languages as well.
Source: Wikipedia
